MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND THE
INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT.
THE twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted
from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. The door
being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself
on one side of the steps, while another man who had been seated on the
box dismounted too, and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr.
Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them,
hurried him into the house. This man was Monks.
They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr.
Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. At the door
of this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance,
stopped. The two men looked to the old gentleman as if for instructions.
“He knows the alternative,” said Mr. Brownlow. “If he hesitates or
moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for
the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.”
“How dare you say this of me?” asked Monks.
“How dare you urge me to it, young man?” replied Mr. Brownlow,
confronting him with a steady look. “Are you mad enough to leave
this house? Unhand him. There, sir. You are free to go, and we to
follow. But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn and most sacred,
that the instant you set foot in the street, that instant will I have
you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery. I am resolute and
immoveable. If you are determined to be the same, your blood be upon
your own head!”
“By what authority am I kidnapped in the street and brought here by
these dogs?” asked Monks, looking from one to the other of the men who
stood beside him.
“By mine,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “Those persons are indemnified by
me. If you complain of being deprived of your liberty—you had power
and opportunity to retrieve it as you came along, but you deemed it
advisable to remain quiet—I say again, throw yourself for protection
upon the law. I will appeal to the law too; but when you have gone too
far to recede, do not sue to me for leniency when the power will have
passed into other hands, and do not say I plunged you down the gulf
into which you rushed yourself.”
Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides. He hesitated.
“You will decide quickly,” said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect firmness
and composure. “If you wish me to prefer my charges publicly, and
consign you to a punishment the extent of which, although I can, with a
shudder, foresee, I cannot control, once more, I say, you know the way.
If not, and you appeal to my forbearance, and the mercy of those you
have deeply injured, seat yourself without a word in that chair. It
has waited for you two whole days.”
Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still.
“You will be prompt,” said Mr. Brownlow. “A word from me, and the
alternative has gone for ever.”
Still the man hesitated.
“I have not the inclination to parley further,” said Mr. Brownlow,
“and, as I advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the
right.”
“Is there—” demanded Monks with a faltering tongue,—“is there—no
middle course?”
“None; emphatically none.”
Monks looked at the old gentleman with an anxious eye, but, reading in
his countenance nothing but severity and determination, walked into the
room, and, shrugging his shoulders, sat down.
“Lock the door on the outside,” said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants,
“and come when I ring.”
The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together.
“This is pretty treatment, sir,” said Monks, throwing down his hat and
cloak, “from my father’s oldest friend.”
“It is because I was your father’s oldest friend, young man,” returned
Mr. Brownlow. “It is because the hopes and wishes of young and happy
years were bound up with him, and that fair creature of his blood and
kindred who rejoined her God in youth and left me here a solitary,
lonely man,—it is because he knelt with me beside his only sister’s
death-bed when he was yet a boy, on the morning that would—but Heaven
willed otherwise—have made her my young wife,—it is because my seared
heart clung to him from that time forth through all his trials and
errors, till he died,—it is because old recollections and associations
fill my heart, and even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts of
him,—it is all these things that move me to treat you gently now—yes,
Edward Leeford, even now—and blush for your unworthiness who bear the
name.”
“What has the name to do with it?” asked the other, after
contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the
agitation of his companion. “What is the name to me?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “nothing to you. But it was _hers_,
and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an old man,
the glow and thrill which I once felt only to hear it repeated by a
stranger. I am very glad you have changed it—very—very.”
“This is all mighty fine,” said Monks (to retain his assumed
designation) after a long silence, during which he had jerked himself
in sullen defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat shading his
face with his hand. “But what do you want with me?”
“You have a brother,” said Mr. Brownlow rousing himself—“a brother,
the whisper of whose name in your ear, when I came behind you in the
street, was in itself almost enough to make you accompany me hither in
wonder and alarm.”
“I have no brother,” replied Monks. “You know I was an only child. Why
do you talk to me of brothers? You know that, as well as I.”
“Attend to what I do know and you may not,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I shall
interest you by and by. I know that of the wretched marriage, into
which family pride and the most sordid and narrowest of all ambition
forced your unhappy father when a mere boy, you were the sole and most
unnatural issue,” returned Mr. Brownlow.
“I don’t care for hard names,” interrupted Monks with a jeering laugh.
“You know the fact, and that’s enough for me.”
“But I also know,” pursued the old gentleman, “the misery, the slow
torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union; I know how
listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pair dragged on their
heavy chain through a world that was poisoned to them both; I know how
cold formalities were succeeded by open taunts; how indifference gave
place to dislike, dislike to hate, and hate to loathing, until at last
they wrenched the clanking bond asunder, and retiring a wide space
apart, carried each a galling fragment, of which nothing but death
could break the rivets, to hide it in new society beneath the gayest
looks they could assume. Your mother succeeded: she forgot it soon—but
it rusted and cankered at your father’s heart for years.”
“Well, they were separated,” said Monks, “and what of that?”
“When they had been separated for some time,” returned Mr. Brownlow,
“and your mother, wholly given up to continental frivolities, had
utterly forgotten the young husband ten good years her junior, who with
prospects blighted lingered on at home, he fell among new friends.
_This_ circumstance, at least, you know already.”
“Not I,” said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his foot upon
the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything. “Not I.”
“Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that you have never
forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,” returned Mr.
Brownlow. “I speak of fifteen years ago, when you were not more than
eleven years old, and your father but one-and-thirty—for he was, I
repeat, a boy, when _his_ father ordered him to marry. Must I go back
to events that cast a shade upon the memory of your parent, or will you
spare it and disclose to me the truth?”
“I have nothing to disclose,” rejoined Monks in evident confusion. “You
must talk on if you will.”
“These new friends, then,” said Mr. Brownlow, “were a naval officer
retired from active service, whose wife had died some half-a-year
before, and left him with two children—there had been more, but of all
their family happily but two survived. They were both daughters; one a
beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other a mere child of two or
three years old.”
“What’s this to me?” asked Monks.
“They resided,” said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hear the
interruption, “in a part of the country to which your father in
his wanderings had repaired, and where he had taken up his abode.
Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on each other. Your
father was gifted as few men are—he had his sister’s soul and person.
As the old officer knew him more and more, he grew to love him. I would
that it had ended there. His daughter did the same.”
The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with his eyes
fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed.
“The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted to that
daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passion of a
guileless, untried girl.”
“Your tale is of the longest,” observed Monks moving restlessly in his
chair.
“It is a true tale of grief, and trial, and sorrow, young man,”
returned Mr. Brownlow, “and such tales usually are; if it were one of
unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief. At length one of
those rich relations to strengthen whose interest and importance your
father had been sacrificed, as others are often—it is no uncommon
case—died, and to repair the misery he had been instrumental in
occasioning, left him _his_ panacea for all griefs—Money. It was
necessary that he should immediately repair to Rome, whither this man
had sped for health, and where he had died, leaving his affairs in
great confusion. He went, was seized with mortal illness there, was
followed the moment the intelligence reached Paris by your mother, who
carried you with her; he died the day after her arrival, leaving no
will—_no will_—so that the whole property fell to her and you.”
At this part of the recital Monks held his breath, and listened with a
face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directed towards
the speaker. As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed his position with the
air of one who has experienced a sudden relief, and wiped his hot face
and hands.
“Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London on his way,”
said Mr. Brownlow slowly, and fixing his eyes upon the other’s
face—“he came to me.”
“I never heard of that,” interrupted Monks in a tone intended to appear
incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeable surprise.
“He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, a picture—a
portrait painted by himself—a likeness of this poor girl—which he
did not wish to leave behind, and could not carry forward on his hasty
journey. He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked
in a wild, distracted way of ruin and dishonour worked by him; confided
to me his intention to convert his whole property at any loss into
money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recent
acquisition, to fly the country—I guessed too well he would not fly
alone—and never see it more. Even from me, his old and early friend,
whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth that covered
one most dear to both—even from me he withheld any more particular
confession, promising to write and tell me all, and after that to see
me once again for the last time on earth. Alas! _That_ was the last
time. I had no letter, and I never saw him more.
“I went,” said Mr. Brownlow, after a short pause, “I went when all was
over to the scene of his—I will use the term the world would use, for
harshness or favour are now alike to him—of his guilty love; resolved
that if my fears were realized that erring child should find one heart
and home open to shelter and compassionate her. The family had left
that part a week before; they had called in such trifling debts as
were outstanding, discharged them, and left the place by night. Why or
whither none could tell.”
Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round with a smile of
triumph.
“When your brother,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer to the other’s
chair—“When your brother,—a feeble, ragged, neglected child,—was
cast in my way by a stronger hand than chance, and rescued by me from a
life of vice and infamy”—
“What!” cried Monks, starting.
“By me,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I told you I should interest you before
long. I say by me—I see that your cunning associate suppressed my
name, although, for aught he knew, it would be quite strange to your
ears. When he was rescued by me, then, and lay recovering from sickness
in my house, his strong resemblance to this picture I have spoken of
struck me with astonishment. Even when I first saw him, in all his
dirt and misery, there was a lingering expression in his face that
came upon me like a glimpse of some old friend flashing on one in a
vivid dream. I need not tell you he was snared away before I knew his
history—”
“Why not?” asked Monks hastily.
“Because you know it well.”
“I!”
“Denial to me is vain,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I shall show you that I
know more than that.”
“You—you—can’t prove anything against me,” stammered Monks. “I defy
you to do it!”
“We shall see,” returned the old gentleman with a searching glance. “I
lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him. Your mother
being dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody
could, and as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate
in the West Indies—whither, as you well know, you retired upon your
mother’s death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here—I
made the voyage. You had left it months before, and were supposed to
be in London, but no one could tell where. I returned. Your agents had
no clue to your residence. You came and went, they said, as strangely
as you had ever done, sometimes for days together and sometimes not
for months, keeping to all appearance the same low haunts and mingling
with the same infamous herd who had been your associates when a fierce
ungovernable boy. I wearied them with new applications. I paced the
streets by night and day, but until two hours ago all my efforts were
fruitless, and I never saw you for an instant.”
“And now you do see me,” said Monks, rising boldly, “what then? Fraud
and robbery are high-sounding words—justified, you think, by a fancied
resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man’s Brother!
You don’t even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you
don’t even know that.”
“I _did not_,” replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; “but within the last
fortnight I have learnt it all. You have a brother; you know it, and
him. There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leaving the secret
and the gain to you at her own death. It contained a reference to some
child likely to be the result of this sad connection, which child was
born, and accidentally encountered by you, when your suspicions were
first awakened by his resemblance to his father. You repaired to the
place of his birth. There existed proofs—proofs long suppressed—of
his birth and parentage. Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now,
in your own words to your accomplice the Jew, ‘_the only proofs of the
boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that
received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin_.’ Unworthy son,
coward, liar,—you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers
in dark rooms at night,—you, whose plots and wiles have hurled a
violent death upon the head of one worth millions such as you,—you,
who from your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father’s
heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered
till they found a vent in a hideous disease which has made your face
an index even to your mind—you, Edward Leeford, do you brave me still!”
“No, no, no!” returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated
charges.
“Every word!” cried the old gentleman, “every word that has passed
between you and this detested villain, is known to me. Shadows on the
wall have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight
of the persecuted child has turned vice itself and given it the courage
and almost the attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you
were morally if not really a party.”
“No, no,” interposed Monks. “I—I—know nothing of that; I was going to
inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. I didn’t know the
cause, I thought it was a common quarrel.”
“It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,” replied Mr. Brownlow.
“Will you disclose the whole?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before
witnesses?”
“That I promise too.”
“Remain quietly here until such a document is drawn up, and proceed
with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose
of attesting it?”
“If you insist upon that, I’ll do that also,” replied Monks.
“You must do more than that,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Make restitution
to an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the
offspring of a guilty and most miserable love. You have not forgotten
the provisions of the will. Carry them into execution so far as your
brother is concerned, and then go where you please. In this world you
need meet no more.”
While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with dark and evil looks
on this proposal and the possibilities of evading it—torn by his fears
on the one hand and his hatred on the other—the door was hurriedly
unlocked, and a gentleman, Mr. Losberne, entered the room in violent
agitation.
“The man will be taken,” he cried. “He will be taken to-night!”
“The murderer?” asked Mr. Brownlow.
“Yes, yes,” replied the other. “His dog has been seen lurking about
some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his master either is,
or will be, there under cover of the darkness. Spies are hovering about
in every direction; I have spoken to the men who are charged with his
capture, and they tell me he can never escape. A reward of a hundred
pounds is proclaimed by Government to-night.”
“I will give fifty more,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and proclaim it with my
own lips upon the spot if I can reach it. Where is Mr. Maylie?”
“Harry—as soon as he had seen your friend here safe in a coach with
you, he hurried off to where he heard this,” replied the doctor, “and
mounting his horse sallied forth to join the first party at some place
in the outskirts agreed upon between them.”
“The Jew”—said Mr. Brownlow; “what of him?”
“When I last heard he had not been taken, but he will be, or is, by
this time. They’re sure of him.”
“Have you made up your mind?” asked Mr. Brownlow, in a low voice, of
Monks.
“Yes,” he replied. “You—you—will be secret with me?”
“I will. Remain here till I return. It is your only hope of safety.”
They left the room, and the door was again locked.
“What have you done?” asked the doctor in a whisper.
“All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling the poor girl’s
intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good
friend’s inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and
laid bare the whole villany which by these lights became plain as
day. Write and appoint the evening after to-morrow at seven, for the
meeting. We shall be down there a few hours before, but shall require
rest, and especially the young lady, who _may_ have greater need of
firmness than either you or I can quite foresee just now. But my blood
boils to avenge this poor murdered creature. Which way have they
taken?”
“Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,” replied Mr.
Losberne. “I will remain here.”
The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever of excitement
wholly uncontrollable.